The use of wireless communication is developing rapidly and higher performance and speed are required to meet the increasing demand for transporting large amounts of communication data for different applications such as video streaming. The currently available wireless-communication systems deteriorate substantially when the radio signals must penetrate obstacles such as walls inside homes. This has not been a major problem in the past as the amount of data required to provide voice and text information are not large compared with for example video streaming, so radio signal deterioration could be tolerated to a larger extent. More particularly, with the progress of wireless access technologies to provide higher data speeds, many telecom operators are focusing on efficiently using these to offer broadband access to their customers. This may rely on a copper and even fiber replacement scheme to offer triple and even quadruple play services compared to the previously provided information speed. However, typical deterioration of performance of a high speed data wireless technology can in most cases exceed 80% of its potential when the radio signal travels through walls. The deterioration is related to the nature and thickness of the obstacle whereby it could be due to absorption or reflection/interference and fading. When applied to a high speed data wireless access network, a typical access technology may lose more than 80% of its performance, i.e. more than 80% of the data throughput it provides at the radio base station site.
A cost-efficient solution to this problem has the potential for allowing a massive broadband deployment to households, offices, schools, and any other indoor environment. Additionally, the current solutions adopted to provide high-capacity wireless coverage indoors are complex and very expensive. Power line communication on the other hand does not have this performance deterioration problem when penetrating walls inside houses but is not used for broadband and telecommunication because it is subject to significant performance losses over longer distances and across transformer stations.
The problems resulting from the above can fall under two categories:
A) There are a multitude of competing radio access technologies; and
B) The currently adopted solutions to deploy broadband coverage indoor are complicated and expensive.
There is currently an abundance of radio access technologies that offer broadband services. This is a phenomenon that makes it difficult to drive economies of scale, roaming, and simplicity. However, most consumers and regulator authorities desire inexpensive and simple systems that may be in the form of real plug-and-play solutions anywhere at anytime without much focus on full mobility since a large portion of the world's population has not yet acquired a lifestyle to require and value this mode of usage.
A great challenge for the current suppliers and operators of wireless broadband access is to find an efficient, safe, and practical way to bring high speed data throughput indoors, into homes, schools, workplaces, airports, and even moving vehicles such as trains, airplanes and busses.
As wireless technologies move towards higher order modulations such as 32 or 64 QAM striving for more efficient usage of frequency spectrum resources and higher bits/Hz, a radio signal suffers a larger and larger deterioration above 80% of its performance due to the large loss of the payload data it carries when penetrating walls. This also means that even higher order modulations constitute no viable option for the future as far as radio signals that must travel through walls.
There is a growing level of concern among users worldwide due to the increasing closeness of an increasing number of high output power transmitting antennas to people especially due to MIMO techniques, as well as the increasing need to acquire new additional radio base station sites to carry a large number of visible antennas. In many countries there is much discussion about the likely and unexplored health hazards that this may involve, not to mention the negative visual impact that an increased number of the radio base stations introduce. As a result, many telecom regulators have started to impose limitations on the number of radio sites and the number of antennas that are allowed at a radio site. This is happening at the same time as telecommunication network vendors are promoting the densification of radio base stations and going for more and smaller cells in a concept referred to as Heterogeneous Networks.
The method of the present invention provides a solution to the above-outlined problems. In general, the present invention demonstrates that, by combining wireless technologies with power line communication in a fixed-wireless convergence scheme, it is possible to provide an inexpensive, reliable and fast wireless communication with little impact regarding the frequency band used. The system of the present invention takes advantage of the synergy between wireless communication and power line communication. Instead of having losses in the order of 80% the losses may be substantially reduced and only be in the order of 15% so that 85% or more of the original signal from the radio base station reaches the end-user although the user may be located inside a house.
More particularly, the method is for providing broadband access into a dwelling. A radio base station is provided that is in connection with a power-line communication (PLC) gateway. The radio base station transmits an information signal to the PLC gateway. The PLC gateway receives the signal and transmits the information signal via power-line to an inside of the dwelling. The PLC gateway may transmit the signal to a PLC repeater. The PLC repeater transmits the signal to customer premise equipment disposed inside the dwelling. The present invention includes the radio base station sending a wireless signal to a fixed wireless router. The wireless router receives the wireless signal and forwards the signal as a wired signal to the PLC gateway. The combination (fixed wireless router and PLC Gateway) would constitute the “Converger unit”, and where fixed-wireless convergence happens. The converger unit may contain more than one wireless router serving several radio access networks belonging to one or several telecom operators. The wireless signal is thus converted to the information signal which is wired. A PLC modem may be positioned between a computer and an electrical plug connected to an electrical outlet disposed inside the dwelling. The PLC modem may also be connected to or incorporated in appliances or vehicles, hence offering a suitable solution for Smart-Grid applications.